


Personal Notes (34) Creepy

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [34]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Coffee, M/M, Re-Education, Science, Strex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 08:58:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1852162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil asks to read Carlos's diary again, but not for entertainment. He has noticed a disturbing pattern that Carlos is unaware of and wants to warn him that things are not always as simple as they seem. </p><p>You'd think he'd know that by now.</p><p>And there are creepy things going on, but that's pretty normal, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Notes (34) Creepy

**Author's Note:**

> My writing style has changed a bit. Is this "good thing", "bad thing" or just "thing"?

A couple of days after the diary-snooping incident, Cecil made a strange request. Strange for a couple of reasons: he knows how I feel about my private diary and it's not like him to do or say something deliberately to upset me. 

We were sitting at the table drinking coffee, stretching out breakfast for as long as possible. I like my new, lazy mornings. Up before Cecil, go for a run maybe before it gets too hot out (or stay and let it get hot in bed instead), shower, proper breakfast instead of grabbing coffee and drinking it on the walk to the lab. We planned a _run in the forest_ after breakfast, our way of saying we needed to talk somewhere away from prying electronics. Cecil shifted in his seat a few times. We don't talk much over breakfast as he needs time and plenty of caffeine to wake up properly but he seemed especially gloomy. He half-opened his mouth and looked up, I made eye contact and he looked down at his coffee cup again. I refilled his cup and mine from the little coffee-pod machine the science team got us as a late housewarming present (when Gio called it a "housewarming" gift, Cecil gaped and nearly dropped it. I must ask him what the Night Vale version of a housewarming party is because we have not had anyone over yet and I don't want any misunderstandings). 

He sipped his espresso. "Mmmhmmm."  
"What is it?"  
"Ummm, nothing really, it's just..." Sip. "Mmm"  
"What!"  
"I kind of need to ask you something but don't want to."  
I put down my book (a smuggled in, dog-eared copy of Lawrence Krauss _The Physics of Star Trek_ that Aleck obtained from Susan and Gio was waiting to read after me) and my coffee, reached over to raise his chin so that he made full eye contact. "Ask. There's nothing you can't ask me, what's the worst that could happen? I might not answer?"  
He seemed to give this serious thought. "Well, you could..."  
I leaned right over and kissed him. "Just ask, okay? It'll be fine, I promise. Whatever it is."  
"Promise?" I kissed him again and called him an idiot.  
Deep breath. "I need to see your diary again. I have to show you something."  
"Oh!" I hadn't expected that.  
"I don't need to read anything I have not already seen," he added, "I know that sounds bad because I shouldn't have read any of it, but there's something you need to see."  
I was fresh out of words.  
"Please don't be annoyed! You said I could ask anything and it would be okay."  
"I'm not annoyed," I replied, "just surprised and trying to think of what I might have written."  
"It's more of a..." he paused, "...pattern I noticed. Do you ever read back?"  
I was interested to find out what he thought he had seen. "No, I never read it again unless I think I have recorded scientific observations that I want to refer to later, but I have a proper lab notebook for that, dated and countersigned and everything. We all do, a scientist has to have their work validated. I think you know how I feel about my diary and therefore deduce that you would not ask if it was not important."  
"You should read back," he said, "you really should."

So when we drove out to the forest for our "run", me in crumpled baggy shorts, Cecil looking fantastic in matching kit, I took my unlicensed laptop with us, wrapped up in a picnic blanket and crammed into my sports bag. Cecil giggled and blushed as we passed the third row of trees and refused to tell me what the trees were saying to him. He mumbled something and a couple of nearby tree branches shook.  
"What?" I asked "You say something?"  
"Later," he said, "I told the forest I'd save their idea for later." He was grinning widely. I had no message from the forest, usually it just burbled about how great Cecil was (and here I would agree with it) but I had a fleeting impression that it _leered_ at me. Possibly because Cecil led the way and he looked _really_ good in sportswear and my mind went for a wander of its own.

He was not going to share the joke. We reached a relatively clear spot, spread out the blanket and sat down. We discussed suitable codes for the next couple of days and how to get the information to Tamika. I suggested using Kiran's book-hopping but he ruled that out as sending written information of any kind was too risky, she had no way of knowing for sure who was reading whichever book she was in at any one moment. We settled on a code based on word position in one of the library books the young militia had liberated followed up by one based on the most up to date periodic table which would work as long as the absent letter combinations were not used too often. I gave him an example to demonstrate what I meant: 58 06 53 03 16 10 85

"Load your diary," said Cecil, passing me the laptop. I did, shielding my password although I'm sure the forest told him because he snorted as soon as I thought about typing it. I would change it later. "Okay, what am I looking for?"  
He told me three places to look. First, after the incident with the random power outages; second, just before New Year and the incident with the mass hallucination about the purple cloud; third, after Valentine's Day with a quick look at a couple of notes I had made later about bad dreams and confusion with names.

I was silent. I read the passages he indicated. I read them again and again but they did not change or go away.  
"I don't remember this."  
"That's the point. I don't either but I was there, you saw me."  
I closed the machine and just sat. I wasn't even thinking. Eventually I broke silence.  
"Ell was there, and that arrogant prick who appeared in the sandstorm."  
"And Kevin was mentioned." He almost spat the name out.  
"Shit. Fuck..." Cecil reached over and held my head still as he looked at me.  
"Calm."  
"No! Fuck, no! What the hell happened?" I shook my head free and got up. My arms and legs were shaking and I needed to be moving. Cecil watched me pace from tree to tree.  
"Re-education," he said. "I think the first two were City Council, maybe under the influence of some... external agency," he paused again. "One mild, you probably just felt a bit jet-lagged for a day or two afterwards, one more severe so you lost a few days. Looks like a few of your team saw things they were not meant to see too. The more times it happens, the harder it gets. Trust me, I know." Cecil rubbed over his head, fingers running through his hair then over his face. "I have so many holes in my memory because of things I might or might not have said that it's a wonder I can function at all. The last one must have been in Desert Bluffs. That means..."  
"Strex." I finished his sentence. He nodded.  
"More than that, your 'double' and Ell are working for them. You can't trust Ell." He met my eyes then looked away. He repeated, "You can't risk trusting Ell."

I couldn't, wouldn't believe that Ell was working against us. I had been suspicious and distrusted her before her disappearance but she could not, surely, be allied with Strex. No, she must be... what? Doing her job. Strex funded our research. Ell must be reporting back on everything we discovered. I sat, opened my laptop again and read through one more time. Ell knew. Ell made excuses and jokes and played dumb. I closed it again softly, sat in silence and stared into space. 

"Ell is lost," Cecil said. Ell, who had been my best friend, witnessed my treatment in the Strex laboratory. And did nothing to prevent it. No warning, no acknowledgement, no explanation. She was complicit in violating my consciousness. 

Cecil huddled up next to me and put an arm around my shoulder, leaned his head against mine. I closed my eyes. "What do I do?" I demanded, "tell me what I should do."  
"Nothing," he replied. "We are not ready yet. Ell needs to suspect nothing, report back that everything is normal, for Night Vale at least."  
I appreciated his joke but couldn't smile. I was shaking again. I needed to move, to run, to hit something. I got up again and resumed pacing. The trees nearest shook their branches.  
"You're making them nervous," said Cecil, getting up, "stand still, count and breathe." 

I did and he held me tightly as I clenched and unclenched my fists, counting and breathing deeply until the tremors subsided. I did not know whether it was fear, fury or frustration. Perhaps all three. I wanted to see Ell straight away, confront her, hear her explain it all away, know that It was all a mistake and not the betrayal we assumed. Cecil talked me down calmly, holding me and stroking me until I had, for the moment, come to terms with the situation. He led me back to the blanket and sat down once more. I lay down on my stomach with my head hidden under my arms.

"We can use this if we are careful," he said. "We can feed Strex misinformation better than anything I report in my show. If you are willing to collude, that is." I did not reply right away. He continued, "It could be useful to feed them false information but possibly dangerous. On second thoughts I want you safe. Forget it, carry on as close to normal as you can."  
I spoke from under my hands. "I'll do it."

He lay beside me, moved one of my hands so that he could rest his head by my shoulder. "There's another thing, your old research."  
"How much do you know about that?" I asked.  
"Just enough to know not to look too closely. They have your double with all your memories. They will be beavering away at it with all their... hmm... _incentives_ for increased productivity. Perhaps you should go back to work on it too, in secret. You have fewer resources but a head start because of your notes and a lack of bureaucracy."  
I propped myself up on my elbows. "I'd need somewhere. There's an abandoned missile silo. Know anything about it?"  
"Yes, I'll ask Tamika to survey the location and secure it for you if she thinks it is suitable."  
"I'll need my notebook back."  
He nodded and smiled slowly. "I hid it in the last place you'd go look for a book in Night Vale."  
I rolled my eyes. "Not the library?"

We were both going to be late. We packed up the blanket and my laptop again, walked back to the car and went home to change. Cecil drove me to the lab, let me out with one last, quiet warning: _If you see something..._ I finished the saying for him. He drove on to the station. I went in to the lab and did my best to act as if I knew nothing. 

It was a difficult day. Ell was already there, having started early. She was in a businesslike mood, assigning tasks to the postgrads efficiently and fairly according to their specialisms. She passed a file to me.  
"This is right up your street. A bunch of archaeologists from LA turned up in the sand wastes, very confused. You want to interview them?"  
I did. "Where are they now?"  
"Duh, the sand wastes!" She opened the file and pointed to a map. I scan-read the documents and set off in the lab's beat-up Hilux with Leah, Aleck and some essential equipment. The usual danger meter, the unusual temporal anomaly monitor and a whole bunch of sensors for radiation, thermal imaging, spectral analysis and audio frequency fingerprinting. We found the bemused museum staff reasonably quickly. There were three of them, wearing beige lab coats with brushes, chisels and sample tubes in their pockets. We got along fine, it was refreshing to have outside scientists to talk with for a change. Leah asked them about the stone slab they had found (apparently they materialised right on top of it whilst in the middle of preparing a South American mummy for a CT scan in their UCLA museum). Aleck and I examined the slab. It was old and weathered by the sand blasting it when it was exposed and flaky from centuries, perhaps millennia, of a cycle of cold nights and baking hot days causing onion-type erosion. It would take careful analysis of the isotope ratio to determine the age of the rock. The archaeologists assured me the writing carved into the stone was several thousand years old. This was confusing because the message was about the closure of the White Sands Ice Cream Parlour. 

I would miss that place, the Guiterrez family made a product way better than their big business rivals. Frozen yogurt, the dessert for people whose lives are insufficiently filled with misery. I interviewed the archaeologists about their experience: what day was it in LA? What time? What were they doing _exactly_ just before fading out of LA and into ankle-deep sand? There was a slight time lag, allowing for our different time zones they had gained two hours. Technically, at the moment they arrived in the Night Vale sand wastes they were just getting out of bed in LA. Thankfully none of them knew this in time to phone their earlier selves and warn them not to go to work today. I could use a few days without a paradox. SO, they had travelled back in time and also some distance east. I set Aleck the task of comparing their physical with their temporal shift in case there was a link, asked Leah to take samples and photographs of the carved stone and drove the archaeologists to the airport just in time to catch a convenient but unscheduled flight from LHR to LAX that landed at NTV to the surprise of all crew and passengers. 

I picked up Leah and Aleck again and we returned to the lab. I called Cecil, this was just the kind of thing he would be interested in. He asked if putting them on an unexpected flight was a good idea and I reassured him that statistically flying is the safest mode of transport. He said if I wasn't too busy could I meet him for coffee later before his show, he wanted to know that I was okay. I said that I was fine, a scientist is always fine, but I texted him back to say I would like to see him. I suggested the new place near the hardware store. I said I'd meet him at the station as soon as I could get there, I wanted to avoid meeting Ell at the lab. I could probably avoid the lab altogether until after her shift ended. I knew I couldn't avoid her forever but I needed not to have to deal with it today.

I went to the station. Cecil had told me to go in and find him. Intern... I'm embarrassed but I don't know the name of the new one, waved me through to the studios. Cecil was in his usual booth with the "on air" light off and his microphone pushed out of the way. I went in. The window of the producer's booth next door was dark and vacant. I pointed at the window and at the webcam. Cecil shook his head both times. He was writing. I excused myself and went to the men's room to check on the development of the "kittens". They are growing fast, developing spine ridges, noticeable venom sacs behind their sharp teeth and one has what looks like a tendril hub near the base of its spine. I was careful about playing with them, partly because of the danger from a playfully venomous bite but mainly because I'm allergic. Odd, I'm not allergic to cats at all. 

I returned to Cecil to find him finished for the moment and ready for a break. On the way to the coffee house I commented that there was more vandalism than there used to be. He just smiled at that. He was angry about the ice cream shop and told me what had happened to the Guiterrez family. He spoke with a kind of quiet fury, eyes narrow and voice low but forceful. Strex had no right to... Mid-sentence, Cecil stopped as a woman walking past accidentally brushed against him. He jumped at the touch. I asked if he was okay but he continued his verbal attack on Strex as if he had not had cause to pause ...destroy peoples lives like that... 

We reached the new coffee house, went in and sat down in a corner booth. We ordered and watched the baristas operate the espresso machine. Cecil commented that there seemed to be a growing fashion for coffee shops, baristas all seemed to be of a similar type and nobody knew where they came from. We had an hour or so to chat or just sit, whatever we wanted. 

"Do you ever, you know, freeze up on air?" I asked, "Can't think of anything to say?"  
"Not really, if I run out of news I make up adverts. Some of the ones I get given to read are terrible and I have to change them anyway."  
"Like what? Any I might have heard?"  
"I don't remember them afterwards. Listen in later and I might put one in for you."  
"I like the way you write for your show, and your... _other_ writing. What I've seen of it anyway. Have you any more _other_ writing?"  
He grinned at me for a moment. "Oh yes. But I'm not going to let you read it yet. I want you to write something for me first. It's your turn after all."  
"My turn? How so?"  
"Well, you wrote poems for me, I wrote slashfic for you, so it's your turn again."  
"The slashfic cancels out the poems. Anyway, I can't write the way you do. I can write about science if you like, how about _All the scientific ways you can die: from asteroid impact to zoological predation_ "  
He looked horrified. "You are absolutely not allowed to die of science!"  
"Okay then, what about _Numbers and what they almost certainly don't mean, or why all numbers are equally special_." He looked at me, one eyebrow up. I explained, "Go on, think of a number, any number." He chose one that made me giggle and blush. "Okay that's a significant number and we know why, although if you have forgotten..." I whispered _I can remind you later_. His turn to giggle. "Pick at random, if that is even possible. It will have some significance for someone or something, somewhere."  
"That might be interesting but would probably get you in trouble. Just write anything. Tell a story. Anything at all. Write about what makes you happy, what scares you, something you did and regret, something you want and why. Anything."

I ordered more coffee and changed the subject. I asked Cecil about bloodstone circles. We had extensively tested a single sample of bloodstone in the lab several months ago and Leah wanted to extend her local knowledge by investigating one. Cecil told me in a voice easily overhead that they had been outlawed and we were not to mention it again, but said quietly that he would come to the lab later. We sat for a while, holding hands under the table, until my phone beeped. It was Gio asking me to investigate reports of strange lights and sounds coming from the scrublands. I said I had to get back to work and walked back to the station with Cecil to pick up the Hilux. I drove out to the sand wastes once more but all I found at the location Gio sent me were scorch marks in the sand and a few pieces of twisted metal. I took photographs, collected samples and headed back to begin my analysis.

I got back just in time for the start of Cecil's show. His warnings are getting more and more obvious and I worry every night that he might not be safe. I used to worry that he would lose his show but now I know there is so much more to lose. There are some small victories, the yellow helicopters are disappearing along with their pilots. I studied a fragment of the tortured metal I found. Was that yellow paint residue? I would have to use the reflection photospectrometer to identify the pigment and compare it with another sample found on a fist-sized rock near Radon Canyon a few days ago. Cecil reported on the lights and noises that I was too late to observe, giving two equally ridiculous explanations of their origin, simultaneously managing to insult the vague yet menacing agency that infiltrates everyday life. 

Sometimes I wish he would just stop. Quit. Be safe. But we will not be any safer if we remain ignorant. We need people who are prepared to report the truth, or something as close an approximation to the truth as they can risk and still be allowed to report. I wonder if he realises how much the community needs him, depends on him, relies on hearing the struggle behind his satire. And I wonder how many don't hear what is behind his idiosyncratic style of news reports and think he is insane. I resolved to make sure he knows how courageous, and how necessary, I think he is.

I listened to Cecil's voice, daydreaming a little. His voice... changed. He talked about the woman we saw in town earlier, at least I assume it was her, in a voice that made me shiver. He recited a poem in this frightening voice that really gave me the creeps. He is very good at telling stories. He came to the lab after his broadcast to talk to Leah about bloodstone circles and showed us, with enthusiasm, how to set one up in the basement after we performed a thorough sweep for surveillance devices and played music loud enough to drown us out from any bugs we might have missed. 

"I liked that creepy poem you read out," I said.  
"What poem?"  
"The one about the woman from Italy."  
"I didn't read any poems, remember you won't let me read yours out and..."  
"But you did read one out, and you did this fantastic creepy voice. It was very effective."  
He shook his head and smiled. "Are you sure you didn't imagine it? Fall asleep in the lab while my show was on?"  
"Quite sure. You really don't remember it?" He shook his head.  
"Huh. Leah, did you listen to Cecil's show tonight?" 

She shook her head, making her beads flick and click and said she was too busy writing up her report on the archaeologists. I am not so sure now that it was a part of his show. Was possession even possible? Was he trying to creep me out? Did I imagine it all?

But it gave me an idea. When we closed up the lab, Leah went back upstairs to the apartment she shares with Estrella, Cecil and I went home with take-out food for a quick dinner before he settled in to think and write for a while. I knew what I would write for him and made another file on my laptop with the title _Creepy Things: Chapter 1 Tentacles_.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'm leaving open the possibility of Carlos writing tentacle porn for Cecil. But probably not, I mean, others have done such a good job of that kink!


End file.
